


Once Upon a Dream

by mrsbonniemellark



Category: Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-28
Updated: 2015-02-28
Packaged: 2018-03-15 16:19:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,358
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3453791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mrsbonniemellark/pseuds/mrsbonniemellark
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Peeta comes back from the Capitol in a coma. Will he ever wake up? Inspired by Sleeping Beauty.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Once Upon a Dream

_"They're back. We're wanted in the hospital." My mouth opens with a flood of questions that Haymitch cuts off with "That's all I know."_

I rush into the hospital room, pushing doctors out of the way, and finally see Peeta lying unconscious on the bed. He looks somehow thinner and more bruised than he did in his recent interviews with Caesar. He’s hooked up to a couple different machines, one supplying him with oxygen and one monitoring his heart that beeps steadily. I drink in the sight of his chest rising and falling with each breath and the sound of his heartbeats. He’s _alive_. And _here_.

“Shouldn’t the gas be wearing off?” I ask. I gently brush his hair off his forehead, the way I’ve dreamed of doing since we separated, and I don’t stop until I feel a gentle nudge on the backs of my knees and know that someone has brought me a chair. I sit down and take Peeta’s right hand in both of mine, staring at his face for any sign of life.

I hear Boggs and Haymitch talking in hushed voices, but I don’t care to listen. I stay in my chair, holding Peeta’s hand until someone tries to pry it out of my grasp.

“What’s going on?” I ask. I look up and see I’m surrounded by doctors trying to move Peeta onto a gurney. In my confusion, my grip tightens on Peeta’s hand. I refuse to let go. I punch the doctor still trying to pry my hand away. In the end, I am restrained by two doctorsand I watch as Peeta is wheeled away from me. They release me once they’ve left. I move to follow them, but Haymitch blocks my path.

“They’re just going to run a couple tests to make sure everything’s okay,” Haymitch says.

“Why wouldn’t everything be okay? What—”

“We don’t know, sweetheart. That’s why they’re going to run some tests. Boggs said he was hooked up to oxygen and an IV when they found him in his cell,” Haymitch sighs, rubbing his face. “It’ll be hours before we know anything, why don’t you head back to your room? I’ll come get you if there’s any news.”

“No. They’re going to bring him back here when they’re done, right?” Haymitch nods. “Then I’m not going anywhere.” I sit back down in my chair, take my rope out of my pocket and start making knots. Haymitch pulls up a chair beside mine and sits down without a word.

I’m not sure what time it is when they return hours later, but my mother is with them. I take Peeta’s hand again once they’ve moved him back to his bed. My mother comes over to Haymitch and me and I guess she’s the one they’ve elected to tell us what’s going on.

“Peeta appears to have suffered blunt force trauma to the skull that’s caused mild swelling in his brain, which has caused him to go into a coma,” my mother says. I’ve heard her use this voice a thousand times when she had to give family members grave news about a patient. Being on the receiving end of it makes her words doubly painful. My grip on Peeta’s hand tightens.

“They’ve given him some medication to help reduce the swelling,” she continues, “but there may be some brain damage when he wakes up. It seems that he’s been in a coma for a few days already, as his injury appears to have occurred the night he warned us about the bombs…” I look over to Haymitch and see the pain I feel reflected on his face. “There also appears to be a small amount of tracker jacker venom in his blood. It’s working its way out of his system, but we won’t know what effect it’s had until he wakes up, and we had to give him a significantly lower dosage of medicine because we don’t know how it’ll react with the venom.”

“Tracker jacker venom? Why would there have been tracker jackers in the Capitol?” I ask.

“They injected him with the venom,” Haymitch says bitterly. Of course they did. My mind floods with images of Peeta being held down as they inject him with the venom that I know first-hand causes horrific hallucinations. _Oh Peeta_ … “What are the chances that the boy will wake up?”

“It’s a waiting game at this point. We’ll know more as time goes on. But there’s a real chance he can wake up. Don’t give up on him,” my mother says.

I don’t leave Peeta’s bedside. I eat my meals in the hospital and sleep in the chair beside him until my mother has an extra hospital bed moved to Peeta’s room so I can at least sleep on a bed. After she leaves, I reposition it so I can hold his hand while I sleep. Every night I’m lulled to sleep by the steady beeping of the heart monitor and the feel of Peeta’s warm hand in mine. He’s still alive. _He’s still alive_.

 

After a week has passed, Boggs stops by to tell me that the rescue mission was too easy; that Snow just let them go. I’m sure Snow thought Peeta was as good as dead anyway. I hear my mother telling Haymitch that the chances of him waking up significantly decrease after a week and I wonder whether Snow was right.

Prim comes by at lunch one day to inform me that Peeta’s latest round of tests show the tracker jacker venom is out of his system and the swelling in his brain has gone down. There’s still the risk of brain damage, but we won’t know more until he wakes up. _If_ he wakes up.

“Have you…tried talking to him?” Prim asks.

“Talking to him? About what?”

“Well, what would you say if he were awake?” she asks gently.

“I’d tell him I’m so glad he’s awake,” I say shakily.

“Okay, well start with that. Talk to him.”

“Peeta—” I break off. “Peeta, it’s Katniss. I _really_ want you to wake up. Please. _Please_ wake up.” I start crying those awful choking sobs that I did when Peeta’s heart stopped. Prim rubs my back reassuringly, but I’m still sobbing when her break from work is over and she leaves.

I crawl onto Peeta’s bed, being careful not to pull on any tubes, and rest my head in its usual place on his chest. I hear his steady heartbeat beneath my ear, feel the rise and fall of his chest, and sob into his thin hospital gown.

 

My mother comes by later and sees me lying next to Peeta. “Come on, Katniss. Let’s go for a walk,” she says.

“No.” I shake my head vigorously. “I can’t leave him.” I fist the front of his hospital gown in my hand.

“This isn’t healthy. You haven’t left this room in over a week. Come on,” she says, pulling gently on my arm. “Just a short walk. We won’t go far, I promise.”

“Okay,” I say, getting up off the bed. “I’ll go.” I turn to Peeta, brushing his hair back from his face, letting my hand trail down the slope of his face and the length of his arm. I squeeze his hand gently, “I’ll be right back.”

My mother keeps her promise. We don’t go far at all. We just pace in the hallway outside of Peeta’s hospital room. And that’s as far as I’m willing to go on the first day; the next day, it’s the hallway just outside the hospital; and by the end of the week, it’s a lap around the whole floor the hospital’s on. I won’t get into an elevator yet. My mother is pleased with my progress, and I have to admit that even just this small amount of exercise is gratifying.

Prim joins us on our walks the second week, and even persuades me to eat lunch with her and Gale in the cafeteria. I don’t like the stares that are leveled at me, but I ignore them. I feel somewhat normal again, eating lunch with them, and it’s not hard to persuade me to make it part of my new routine.

After a month has passed, I even want to go hunting again. I decide to make it a short trip. Once I'm outside, breathing in lungfuls of fresh air, I feel the familiar thrill of the hunt in my veins and I ignore every other feeling trying to take precedent.

As Gale and I skin the few rabbits we’ve caught, he turns to me, “Katniss—” he breaks off with a shake of his head. “Never mind.”

“What?” I ask. Gale doesn't keep secrets from me.

“It's just—would you be like this if it were me in the hospital?” he asks.

“What? Why would you even ask that?” I say, bewildered. Is that what's been troubling him the last month? He's been worrying about my feelings for him while I've been torn to pieces watching Peeta suffer in a coma that he may never wake from?

“I’m worried that I can never compete with Peeta if he never wakes up. You'll always be thinking about him.”

“Peeta’s in a coma, Gale. He's not doing this on purpose. And you'll have to forgive me for not paying attention to you while the life of someone I love is hanging in the balance.” I storm off, but Gale catches up to me quickly, grabbing my arm.

“Do you?” He asks sharply. His hold on my arm tightens.

“Do I what?” I snap. “Let go of me.”

“Do you love him?” He asks in a tight voice.

“Ugh!” I ditch my efforts to get my arm out of his grasp and use my free arm to slap him across the face. His grip on me slackens as he reels back in surprise and I pull free, storming off.

 

In my anger, I get off the elevator on the wrong floor and don’t notice until I’m nearing Command. Just as I’m about to turn back, I hear voices from around the corner. I move closer, as close as I dare, and recognize Coin and Plutarch’s voices. “At this point,” Coin says, “it’s unlikely that he will ever wake up. We can’t keep wasting precious resources and our doctors’ time on him.” Oh no, _Peeta_.

“I agree. Keeping him in this state is also detrimental to our mockingjay’s health. It’s unfortunate, but there’s nothing we can do,” Plutarch says.

No! This can’t be happening. I rush back to his room, sit beside him on his bed and cup his face with my hands. “Peeta, please wake up. Don’t let them take you from me. _Please_.” I repeat the word over and over, each time more desperately than the last. I wipe away each tear that lands on his face, ignoring the ones all over mine. My pleas fade as my sobs take over and my will crumbles with it.

It’s pointless. Coin’s right. He’s never waking up. Snow as good as killed him the night of the bombing; the night he made one final attempt to save my life.

I find myself singing the song I sang to Prim whenever she had a nightmare, the song I sang to Rue as she died. My voice is shaky and punctuated by sobs. It’s not the best singing I’ve done by any means, but I want Peeta to hear it. I so hope he can hear me, in whatever twilight world he’s trapped in. He always liked my voice.

“Here your dreams are sweet and tomorrow brings them true, here is the place where—” I break off. I’m breathing hard, but I need to say the final words of the song.

“I love you,” I whisper softly. I lean forward and press my lips gently to his. I memorize the feel of his lips against mine, the way they’re soft but firm and always so _warm_. I pull back slowly, smoothing his hair back from his forehead and pressing a kiss there as well.

And then, impossibly, his eyes flutter open.

His _eyes_. I can see the beautiful blue of his eyes. They’re staring right at me. But how do I know this is real? I press the button by his bed to call for one of the nurses. At least one of us needs medical attention.

“Katniss?” He asks. _Please let this be real._ His hand reaches up slowly to touch my face and I lean into it. His other hand follows a second later and he brushes my tears from my cheeks with his thumbs.

“Oh _Peeta_ ,” I say. “I’m so glad you’re awake.” More tears spill over onto my cheeks, but I’m smiling now. I press another kiss to his lips.

“You—you were singing,” he says. His eyes are wide with awe and I know he heard me. “And then…you said that you—” He breaks off as the nurse comes in.

“Mr. Mellark, you’re awake,” she says in shock. “We’ll have to run some more tests if that’s alright.” Peeta nods.  “I’ll be right back.” She leaves the room again.

“You—” Peeta starts again. “I heard you say that—”

“Yes,” I tell him. “I love you.”

Peeta’s test results come back that he’s perfectly healthy, with no memory loss. Selfishly, I wish he didn’t remember what happened to him in the Capitol, but that was too much to hope for. After the doctors clear him to leave the hospital, he gets his own compartment. My mother pretends not to notice when I slip out of our compartment at night.

Sometimes when Peeta and I are lying in bed and I see him sleeping, I’m filled with terror that he’ll never wake up and I shake him fiercely until he does. It rather disturbs his sleeping schedule, but he’s more than happy to comfort me once he’s awake. He pulls me close and rubs my back while he whispers that he loves me and that he’s not going anywhere. And, reassured, I drift off to sleep in his arms.


End file.
